United Kingdom & Ireland

Table of contents

Introduction

I went to the UK several times, in most of the cities I've been for quite a short while. Nonetheless it always was a nice experience and a common ground between all the trips has been paying a visit to a nice pub to at least drink a Guinness and one pint of beer that I've never tried before. Another common ground is always try a couple new whiskies and update my database with my tastings.

Regions

Edinburgh

The first exposure that I had with whiskies was in 2022 in the Whisky Museum in Edinburgh. Of course I drank some before, but here I learned a lot of the history in Whisky making, which flavours there are and which techniques are used to create those flavours. Most of the whiskies I had so far were blends, but here I tried a single malt from every region in Scotland and learned that every region has its own characteristics. Other experiences we've had in Edinburgh were cemeteries, the park between old town and new town with a very nice view over the medieval structures and castles on top of the mountain. Partly climbed Albert's seat and tried to visit Cramond island, but it is only accessible during low tide.

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Belfast

In 2022 I've also been in Belfast, because that's where our plane took off when we went to Denmark. It flew to Oslo, so Belfast and Oslo were kind of a bonus. In this short stay I tried to go to the Titanic distillery, but bad luck. It was closed for reconstruction. I learned for the first time that the Titanic was built here and it would have been nice to visit the Titanic museum, but also that was closed for reconstruction. I did visit the Ulster museum, which was nice to learn about history and the wildlife in Belfast. Also I learned a lot about the separation between the republicans and the loyals on a guided tour with 2 ex-prisoners from either side. The first one dropped us off at the wall and left, a couple of minutes later the other one arrived to pick us up for the second half of the tour. The wall still closes off the two city halves after 9pm every evening, because the violence is still very present. Another nice experience, which is a British phenomenon, was to visit the comedy club.

Dublin

The second actual exposure I had with whiskies was 2023 in Dublin, where I learned a lot about Irish whiskeys in the Irish Whisky Museum. Also visited a distillery for the first time, which was Teeling. Unfortunately the distillery itself was closed for maintenance, but I did learn how to make a proper Irish coffee. Other experiences that I had were the park and a very nice old school Irish pub with actual Irish folk music. I walked past the Temple Bar, but didn't actually visit it. If I ever go to Dublin again I will probably visit the Guinness brewery. I went to Dublin because our plane to Rovaniemi, Finland took off from there, so again this was quite a short stay.

Liverpool

In 2023 I spent a week in Liverpool, which was a nice city where I leared a couple of things about the Beatles, about the history of Liverpool and the scouse. In 2024 I went for a revisit when I studied for my thesis in the university library, which was quite nice. Also went to a comedy club, which was... interesting. In a small and cosy basement pub we were lucky to have a private whisky tasting experience.

Manchester

With Liverpool as the base, I spent a day in Manchester, where I visited the historical museum which was like a cathedral, and the museum of industry where steam engines and weaving machines were exposed. Also the chair and other relics of Stephen Hawking were exposed there. A third museum I've visited was the people museum, where several things were exposed that are related to people. Like fashion throughout the last couple centuries, designs of houses and interiors, linguistics and more. I liked the other museums more, but a great thing about the UK is that museums are usually free. Apart from that I just did some strolling through town, unfortunately it was quite drousy.

Chester

Also we went to visit Chester for one day, which was a nice old British town, where we went to see the cathedral and planned to see some Lego structures. Unfortunately these were quite disappointing, because it had the size of something that could have fit in my cabinet.

LLandudno

Another experience that we had this week was our visit of the Penderyn distillery where I finally got my first distillery tour. Also we did a tasting masterclass. We had to smell several little containers with a scent, this was quite hard because we had to guess which scent it contained. I didn't even get half of them right. A master blender has to guess them all right to be able to make good whisky blends. With this tour we tasted 8 different Penderyn whiskies. When we were in Wales, we also saw the smallest house in the UK.

London

In september 2024 we went to The Whisky Event, which is an event of 3 days where hundreds of whisky manufacturers or bottlers expose a selection of their whiskies. I think more than 2000 different whiskies could be tasted. In the last 3 years I've tasted a couple more than 100 whiskies, within this event I doubled that. Of course I saw other landmarks in London, the event was in between Tower Bridge and London Bridge. I've seen Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Picadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square. We also wanted to visit Camden Town, but unfortunately we didn't have a lot of time between the event. I will probably visit London again to do that. Another thing that would be nice is to visit the oldest pub of the UK.